ipl-logo

A Feminist Manifesto In Fifteen Suggestion

798 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Effects of gender stereotypes in the society

As the times change, society’s mentality evolves. People’s view of women throughout history has metamorphosed into the strong feminist leaders we look up to today. Some components of women’s lives, however, are still in need of an update. For example, women are often expected to choose between wanting children and wanting a career. This assumption of a woman prioritizing her family over her career is severely outdated and should no longer limit what a woman can become in her life.
Since ancient times, women have been expected to be the ones to quit their careers and put their lives on hold to focus on birthing and raising children. Females are taught to accept this notion’s inevitability from an early age (Adichie). This notion arises from …show more content…

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s book, Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions, stresses the importance of a women choosing her own path. Adichie advocates women to reach for a career alongside her family, not behind her family, and to “reject the idea that motherhood and work are mutually exclusive” (Adichie, page 9). The struggle that mothers face to have careers was researched by Hana Schank and Elizabeth Wallace in their article “When Women Choose Children Over a Career.” The authors found that about a quarter of women end up at home raising children instead of utilizing their college degrees. Even though these women usually do not intend to end up careerless and had once aspired to be successful in the working world, it happens. Schank and Wallace interviewed women to begin to understand why it is so common to change one’s life plans after becoming a mother. Most of the women explained that the cost of childcare factored in with their salaries concluded that “their working would negatively affect their family” (Schank). This issue is understandable and common with mothers with low paying jobs. It is not practical for a mother to pay for expensive, necessary childcare so that she can go to her job when it costs more than what her job is paying (Poduval). Other women shared

Show More
Related
985 Words | 4 Pages

Goodman supports her assertions through a character from the television series, ‘Desperate Housewives’, whom Goodman claims reveals the realities of being a full-time mother. Goodman’s purpose of the article is to remind readers of the typical mother’s thoughts and occasional emotions in order to reassure mothers who are contemplating whether they made the right decision to give up their careers to solely care for their children and households. The author establishes both an informal and relatable relationship with her audience of mothers who are in need of

Read More
2480 Words | 10 Pages

One of the most well-known entertainers of the world, Beyoncé, is part of the best singers in the music industry. She is, somehow, considered to be a great example of the Feminist movements for showing off the talents of the femininity. The Feminist Movement started in the 1840’s, but it didn’t really expand until the 1960’s after Betty Friedan’s book The Feminine Mystique was published. In that book, Betty encourages women to change the way society view them as the ideal employment for them is to stay at home mom and wife voice their opinions and fight for equality of the sexes.

Read More
826 Words | 4 Pages

The ideal young Canadian woman raised in the twenty-first century is taught to feel empowered by her own drives and ambitions and to dismiss the traditional expectations created by previous societies. She learns that being educated guides her to success, and that the only validation she will ever need is from herself. But above all, she understands that sometimes sacrifices are necessary to achieve her full potential, especially when it regards her professional career. In reality, some women are reluctant to give up or reduce their career position upon starting a family, as giving up even a small fraction of it means giving up a portion of the product of their hard work.

Read More
554 Words | 3 Pages

When comparing Anne – Marie Slaughter, the author of “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All”, and Ellen Ullman, the author of “How to be a Woman Programmer”, both possess a strong feminist perspective within their writing. In their articles, both female authors touch a nerve across generations, among both men and women, that has set off a new public debate on women’s progress and work-life balance. Slaughter and Ullman both agree that society still considers the woman to be the primary caregiver within the relationship. Due to these views, both women are combating sexism within the workplace, but, despite this, both are strong, career driven women. Anne-Marie Slaughter is a lawyer, foreign policy analyst, political scientist, public communicator, current president and

Read More
1001 Words | 5 Pages

In the discussion of whether or not women could achieve the work-life balance, the idea of women having it all have always been a controversial issue. Women are expected to be able to balance their careers and a family, simultaneously giving equal amounts of time to each and succeeding on both ends. The standard way of thinking is that a woman’s ultimate job in life is to have children and build a family. This idea is combined with the new age feministic view that women should join the work force and have a goal oriented career. These contending ideas have contributed to an ongoing debate that is affecting women to this day, women such as Susan Patton and Lisa Belkin.

Read More
1443 Words | 6 Pages

Women realizes that without work and salary had make them lost their confidence as an individual to pursuing a professional job because they don’t know their worth anymore. For example, the author state, “a Time magazine cover story on “The Case for Staying Home” and a “60 Minutes” segment devoted to a group of former mega-achievers who were, as the anchor Lesley Stahl put it, “giving up money, success and big futures” to be home with their children. (Warner, 2013) Women thought that by staying home will solve the relationship issues and that women will be recognized as a good mother, but O’Donnel’s experience proved this to be wrong. Women who are working, they value their self more and put their self in front of a lot of things like marriage and manage work related.

Read More
808 Words | 4 Pages

Women and Men in Today’s World We live in a world where women and men have to choose whether they are going to have their dream job, or have their dream family. Neither men, nor women have the opportunity of having both; there are still some things that limit us from having it all. By comparing and contrasting Anne Slaughter’s essay on “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All,” and Richard Dorment’s essay “Why Men Still Can’t Have It All,” we find reasons on what they think limits people on having both the dream job and dream family with all the accruing benefits.

Read More
1644 Words | 7 Pages

Women’s success in the labour force ultimately showed that the ideal of a family in which the mother stayed at home to look after the children while

Read More
562 Words | 3 Pages

The authors Margaret Sanders, The Children's Era, Virginia Woolf, Professions For Women and Booker T. Washington, The Atlanta Exposition Address address their main issues with society and state multiple ways on how we can fix and make social life preferable. Many people find it hard to get to the things they want to achieve, but to be successful one must have the ability of an individual to meet his/her true potential. Margaret Sanger’s prompt The Children’s Era describes poverty and lack of access to birth control along with a lack of money to support lots of children. To meet their true potential she believes that people who are completely healthy should be the only parents raising a child. She states, “We want to free women from enslaved and unwilling motherhood.

Read More
924 Words | 4 Pages

Women and the battle to maintain a work-lifestyle balance has been consistently debated and toyed with by society for ages. Anne-Marie Slaughter, Professor of Politics and author of “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All” explains the continuous hardship of balancing a career and a family; as well, Stephen Marche, writer and author of “Home Economics: The Link Between Work-Life and Income Equality” combats Slaughter’s article and the many gaps present in society. Slaughter and Marche compare and contrast the differences of the leadership gap between men and women, the strategies of maintaining a work-balance lifestyle in regards to family, and the type of dialogue representing men in articles written by women. Anne-Marie Slaughter and Stephen

Read More
1109 Words | 5 Pages

Pursuing an education and a career is challenging in itself, and unimaginably difficult while raising a young child. This is why a choice is imperative. Furthermore, there was a strong sense of solidarity throughout the entirety of the conference. So many individuals came together to discuss women’s issues. Since the

Read More
810 Words | 4 Pages

A woman is destined to be a mother before anything else. The context of the 1800s which is characterized by the misconstrued idea that a women’s sole role is to be a homemaker expounds upon this thought. Plagued by overly saturated patriarchal-driven mindsets, society during this particular time period was in no way straying from this set delegation for women. Besides the fact, Edna Pontellier had no desire to be a “woman of her time”, to do so would place her in a box in which there would be no escape from society’s calculated stream of social suppression. Daringly, Edna committed a social sin, one in which there was no return.

Read More
1322 Words | 6 Pages

Moreover, the shortage of female employment opportunities, as well as restrictive cultural expectations, resulted in only a narrow range of careers to be available to women. For example, for the comparatively few middle class women who pursued a career outside of the home, they “...had been largely restricted to school-teaching, social-service work, nursing, stenography, and clerical work in business houses” (Allen, 80). Therefore, women’s identities during the very early 1900s were heavily influenced by the work they provided in the home, and the traditional norms of the times. Thus, while these women made efforts towards independence from the traditional norms, they were almost completely reliant on

Read More
791 Words | 4 Pages

During the 1890’s until today, the roles of women and their rights have severely changed. They have been inferior, submissive, and trapped by their marriage. Women have slowly evolved into individuals that have rights and can represent “feminine individuality”. The fact that they be intended to be house-caring women has changed.

Read More
557 Words | 3 Pages

Yet, there are many problems beyond these factors. Why do women spend less time on work? Why are women paid less after they have children whereas men are paid more? And why do women choose more flexible jobs? There must be something beyond these factors and affects women’s decisions.

Read More

More about A Feminist Manifesto In Fifteen Suggestion

Related Topics

Open Document